Black is new red (for tomatoes)

It has taken five years, thousands of cross-pollinations and goodness know how many tens of thousands of pounds to develop, but the black tomato is here.

The latest culinary oddity hit the supermarkets today. Sainsbury's - the store that brought us the purple carrot - is calling this new beast the Kumato. That it isn't really black, and that the first person to taste it today didn't like it, were things the store would probably prefer to overlook.

"That's horrible," said Charlotte Davis, 23, at the Cromwell Road branch, after biting into a fruit that was dark green with reddish streaks. "It's not very tasty. It's a bit soil-y. The outside did not taste that great. But the inside was quite nice. It's not as sweet as a red tomato. Black is not the colour you use for cooking. It implies burnt."

The Kumato originates from its wild cousin lycopersicon cheesmanii, which grows in the Galapagos Islands. Sainsbury's duty manager Jon Dale said: "We've been nurturing them into this black tomato for the last five years. It's not GM or anything. It's all naturally done. It's all about the sweetness and fuller flavour. A lot of people like the sweeter tomato. We think this is a real goer."